Some people are supremely good at it, reducing complex situations into matters of simple black and white. This isn’t my particular area of expertise; I enjoy wading through the pools of ambiguity a bit too much to go about bludgeoning this beautiful world into absolutes. In fact, I would venture that delighting in nuance is part of what distinguishes La Vie Velominatus from the simple act of riding a bicycle.
I’ve spent the summer wrapping myself in the Rules handed down by the Apostle Museeuw during Keepers Tour 2012, with particular emphasis on Rule #90. Climbing Sur la Plaque is a cruel business, rising upwards under the crushing weight of physics as you fight to maintain your rhythm and momentum. At first, it’s a struggle to maintain speed on the smaller climbs as you learn how to change your pedaling action to compensate for changes in gradient. You focus on loading the pedals and forcing them around; the moment you lose the rhythm, gravity sinks her claws into your tires and tries to drag you back down the hill. On the other hand, if you maintain your cadence and power through the ramps, what is usually an intimidating slope will disappear under your wheels, making molehills of mountains.
If the Big Ring is a hammer, then not every climb is a nail. (I realize too late that referring to the road as a nail is sure to bring the Puncture Apocalypse on today’s ride.) The guns get more massive from the practice of Rule #90, but it comes at a hefty price: souplesse withers like a delicate flower as one seeks to conquer the art of mashing a huge gear. Indeed, one of the great pleasures in Cycling is to sense a certain fluidity of your stroke which belies the feeling of strength in your muscles as you continue to heap coals on the fire.
This requires an art altogether different from moving Sur la Plaque; it relies on turning the pedals at a higher cadence and shifting gear whenever the gradient changes. Rhythm holds court over everything else and is maintained at all costs. As the gradient steepens, the chain is slipped into the next smaller gear; as the gradient eases, it is droped back down. Not every climb suits this style of riding; the rear cluster must be matched perfectly to accomodate the changes in pitch such that maximum speed is maintained and the legs allowed to continue their relentless churn. When synchronized perfectly, it is the gateway to La Volupté; when not: disaster.
Such is the nuance of shifting gear, such is the nature of Cycling.
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@scaler911
Dear god you're making it hard work to like you. Just when we might have forgotten about your indiscriminate gender preferences, and then get over the hump of your power cranks, you go and put fucking platform crank brothers pedals on them. Gaaaarrrrr!
At least your explanation of how to use them goes a little way to justifying using them. You must be intensely fucking irritating (or absolute dynamite) on a date.
@frank
A gear inch is a gear inch. Anything else is in your head -- no less real, but probably not amenable to explanation in terms of Newtonian physics.
@Marcus
Yes I am, although I've found it best when I can't actually see you. I'd advise new suitors to do the same.
@minion Canberra has changed you.
@frank
Surely this conversation is about useful ratios, is it not?
It's all well and good to talk about 53/27 being the same as 38/18, but what happens if you come to that hill and you need another gear? Shift it up to the 28? 30? 34? Then what? Then you'd find yourself with a bunch of completely fucking useless ratios on the other end.
Ideally, the gearing should be set up in such a way that at reasonable race pace, you're roughly in the centre of the cassette so that you have scope to shift up and down as required by the nature of the terrain you're riding over. That's also the primary reason that maunufacturers have evolved a greater number of gears on the cassette so that the ratio's can be as tight as possible.
You might have a more "efficient" system in that you are reducing the friction of the chain engaging with smaller chainrings, but that is offset by the amount of mass that you would have to carry with a 53 chainring with a mountain bike cassette up to 34 on the back. I've no idea which one is the greater evil, but I sure as fuck know which one looks better.
@frank
Yeah, 13x17 was what you wanted 'cause it looked so fucking cool. You of course would be spat out the back on the first hill, but you'd look cool doing it.
You were right about the timing of modern cranks with the smaller BCD that enabled chainrings t ogo down to 39, but I know for a fact that Campagnolo made either a 40 of 41 that fit on Super Record cranks around about 88 or 89.
I recall being looking on very jealously as my teammate showed his off before the start of the Provincials that year on a very hilly parcours.
@frank
@unversio I surely don't unnnerstan' them vector diagram things , but I do know how gears work thanks, man.
@minion
Don't get your panties all in a bunch. Those aren't mine. It's a photo off Google (notice the pez cycling credit in the photo you sheep fucker). I ride Speedplays. And, weirdly, I bought mine off ebay, and one crank is anodized black and the other gold. Just adds to the aesthetics I think.
Alright, I'll testify. I live in Colorado, and I like to ride long climbs like most of us here. Mostly, I ride a compact with a 12-28 that I use in the mountains and over passes like Loveland, Monarch, Hoosier, etc (either from the east or west), or Pikes Peak Highway which opened to cyclists the entire month of September for $10. I also ride a 53-39 with a 12-28 that I usually use on longer rides along the front range but don't require 1000m of climbing in 2 or 6 Km, BUT, I can still climb with. That's what I love about where I live...go west to the mountains and big climbs, go east to the high plains and flats and wind.
What and how you ride surely depends on where you are at, at the time. Last summer, the VMH and I went home to southern Illinois for a short vacation over Independence Day with great expectations of long rides on back country roads. Foolishly, and I'm not sure why or how, I packed the compact. While riding the old stomping grounds, I quickly determined that my recollections of the hilly terrain were greatly exaggerated. I quickly spun out of the high gear. Only the humid air, "damning elevation" of 165m, and the mosquitos of the Heartland held me back. The mosquitos were the worst.
My point is is that the big ring and cassette that you use ought to be for the terrain you ride, and mash it hard. For the average dude, if you want to use a 53-39 and 11-26 around Colorado, I'll see you at the bottom of the next pass. For the rest of you, don't drink all the beer before I get there.
@niksch
Dude, you need to work on your cadence.
You're spinning out at 68 km/h at 130rpm based on the development of a 50x12.
FWIW I'm on a 50x34, 11-25. The 11 helps. The only time I've ever spun out was descending a gradient of more than 10%.
Anyhoo, my point is that I'm pretty happy with the compact thus far. Maybe if I turn into a real man in the next year or so, i'll go back to the 53/42 of my yoot.